Editing Coming out (section)

== History ==
{{Further|Timeline of LGBTQ history}}
[[File:Karl Heinrich  Ulrichs.jpg|thumb|19th-century gay rights advocate [[Karl Heinrich Ulrichs]]]]
Between 1864 and 1869, [[Karl Heinrich Ulrichs]] wrote a series of pamphlets{{snd}}as well as giving a lecture to the Association of German Jurists in 1867{{snd}}advocating decriminalization of sex acts between men, in which he was candid about his own homosexuality. Historian [[Robert Beachy]] has said of him, "I think it is reasonable to describe [Ulrichs] as the first gay person to publicly out himself."<ref name="Stack-2020">{{cite news |last=Stack |first=Liam |title=Overlooked No More: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Pioneering Gay Activist |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/obituaries/karl-heinrich-ulrichs-overlooked.html |date=1 July 2020}}</ref>

In early 20th-century Germany, "coming out" was called "self-denunciation" and entailed serious legal and reputational risks.<ref name=Marhoefer>{{cite journal |last1=Marhoefer |first1=Laurie |title=Did Sex Bring Down the Weimar Republic? |journal=Bulletin of the GHI Washington |issue=65 |date=Fall 2019 |pages=59–71 |url=https://perspectivia.net/receive/pnet_mods_00002492 |language=en |issn=1048-9134}}</ref> In his 1906 work, {{Lang|de|Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur}} (The sexual life of our time in its relation to modern civilization),<ref>Bloch, Ivan (1906). ''Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur''. [The sexual life of our time in its relations to modern civilization], 1910.</ref> [[Iwan Bloch]], a German-Jewish physician, entreated elderly homosexuals to self-disclose to their family members and acquaintances. In 1914, [[Magnus Hirschfeld]] revisited the topic in his major work ''The Homosexuality of Men and Women'', discussing the social and legal potential of several thousand homosexual men and women of rank, revealing their sexual orientation to the police in order to influence legislators and public opinion.<ref>Johansson&Percy, p. 24</ref> Hirschfeld did not support 'self-denunciation' and dismissed the possibilities of a political movement based on open homosexuals.<ref name=Marhoefer/>

The first prominent American to reveal his homosexuality was the poet [[Robert Duncan (poet)|Robert Duncan]]. In 1944, using his own name in the anarchist magazine ''[[Politics (1940s magazine)|Politics]]'', he wrote that homosexuals were an oppressed minority.<ref>[http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15949 "Robert Duncan and Romantic Synthesis: A Few Notes"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100906020604/http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15949|date=6 September 2010}}. This article also republished as "On Robert Duncan" at Modern American Poetry website</ref> The decidedly clandestine [[Mattachine Society]], founded by [[Harry Hay]] and other veterans of the [[Henry A. Wallace|Wallace for President]] campaign in Los Angeles in 1950, moved into the public eye after [[Hal Call]] took over the group in San Francisco in 1953. Many gays emerged from the closet there.

In 1951, [[Donald Webster Cory]]<ref name=sagarin>{{cite web |url=http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sagarin_e.html |title=Donald Webster Cory |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090606151656/http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sagarin_e.html |archive-date=6 June 2009 |publisher=[[glbtq.com]] |access-date=7 May 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sagarin_e.html |title=Sagarin bio |publisher=Glbtq.com |date=18 September 1913 |access-date=24 June 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090606151656/http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sagarin_e.html |archive-date=6 June 2009}}</ref> published his landmark ''The Homosexual in America'', saying, "Society has handed me a mask to wear&nbsp;... Everywhere I go, at all times and before all sections of society, I pretend." Cory was a pseudonym, but his frank and openly subjective descriptions served as a stimulus to the emerging homosexual self-awareness and the nascent [[homophile movement]].

In the 1960s, [[Frank Kameny]] came to the forefront of the struggle. Having been fired from his job as an astronomer for the Army Map service in 1957 for homosexual behavior, because it was considered to make people vulnerable to blackmail pressure and endanger secure positions, Kameny refused to go quietly. He openly fought his dismissal, eventually appealing it to the [[US Supreme Court]]. <!-- What was the outcome? -->As a vocal leader of the growing movement, Kameny argued for unapologetic public actions. The cornerstone of his conviction was that, "we must instill in the [[LGBTQ community|homosexual community]] a sense of worth to the individual homosexual", which could only be achieved through campaigns openly led by homosexuals themselves.

With the spread of [[consciousness raising]] (CR) in the late 1960s, coming out became a key strategy of the [[gay liberation]] movement to raise [[political consciousness]] to counter [[heterosexism]] and [[homophobia]]. At the same time and continuing into the 1980s, gay and lesbian [[social support]] discussion groups, some of which were called "coming-out groups", focused on sharing coming-out "stories" (accounts) with the goal of reducing isolation and increasing LGBTQ visibility and [[Gay pride|pride]].